The Scene
by Exiled-Away
Summary: -Complete- Femslash Implied- What if Willow saw Spike and Buffy during "that scene" at the Bronze. BuffyWillow -Complete - Femslash Implied


**The Scene**

I stand here staring down at my friends as they laugh and dance together. The distorted music from the speakers is adding a surreal texture to the night. My friends don't understand what I'm feeling because I don't feel . . . period. I hear Spike's grunts as he nears his climax and I think I should be embarrassed, or maybe I should feel shame? Yes, I should feel shame at letting him do this to me in such a public place.

My problem is that fighting him is too much of a bother. Why should I fight him? I used to know; now there is nothing. I am nothing but a walking, breathing corpse that doesn't know enough to lie down and die. He finishes and I think I should go to the bathroom to clean up--but again--that seems like too much trouble.

He mumbles something about darkness and where I belong or is it what I should be feeling? I don't know, I don't want to concentrate long enough for his words to make sense. It's enough that he finally leaves me alone.

That's what I want, to be left alone so that I don't have to spend the energy to pay attention.

"Buffy, What are you doing up here?" I hear Willow ask me. I glance down at the dance floor and realize that the gang has not only stopped dancing, but they are now standing around me. I hate it when this happens, to be caught doing nothing, because it means they aren't going to leave me alone for the rest of the night. They are worried about me.

I drag out what little energy I have to smile at them so that they won't worry.

"Vamp, there was a vampire up here..." I start, breaking my face in half with a smile I direct mostly at Xander and Anya. If I let Willow see my eyes before the mask is fully in place then she will know. "I slayed him and then I was just checking out the crowd for more." I keep my voice perky, the way the old, non-dead Buffy used to sound. It's just

hollow noise to me but it seems to do the trick for Xander and Anya as they smile back.

"Hey Cool! The Slay Master General strikes again!" Xander says in that too loud way he has of talking when he's relieved.

"How many did you get, Buffy?" Willow asks me, stressing my name so I automatically turn toward her to answer.

'Damn, busted,' I think as I see her eyes widen in recognition.

"One, there was just one," I tell her quickly trying to cover by projecting perkiness that I don't feel. I quickly look away from her and turn back toward the railing of the balcony. I cross my arms and lean against it trying to appear casual, somehow I know it's too late to fool Willow. The silence becomes thick with tension.

"Look guys, I think I'm going to do a quick patrol and then head home," I turn back to face Xander and Anya. "Xand could you make sure Willow gets home safely?"

I don't really want to go on patrol; I just want to escape the all-knowing gaze of Willow Rosenberg. She will make me talk and I just don't have the energy. Just standing here pretending that nothing is wrong is draining all my strength. I wish I could just lay down on the couch and sleep.

God, I'm so tired all the time, all I want to do is sleep. Except I have nightmares that aren't really nightmarish until the end.

"No, Xander, you and Anya go home," Willow orders and they obey her.

"See ya, Buff," Xander says.

"Yes, goodbye Buffy. It was a pleasant evening, thank you very much for inviting me," Anya says as they walk away from me, leaving me with Willow.

'When did she become the boss of everyone? Maybe when I was dead?' I think to myself and feel an ember of something flare deep inside me, only it dies before I can really grasp it.

I risk a glance at Willow and realize that she's not going to let me get away with an excuse this time. She has her resolve face on. I know I could run from her, but why? It would just delay, not prevent, what's going to happen.

"So don't you think you should go to the bathroom and clean up?" Willow asks me.

"Well, that wasn't expected," I reply, not really caring what I say to her. The next few minutes are just something to be endured. It's a dance that we have to go through every few weeks. I just want her to finish whatever it is she has to say.

"I can smell Spike all over you from here," Willow's voice is a horse whisper. She's angry with me.

And I should care. I really should.

"You saw?" I gather up the strength to walk to the stairs leading to the dance floor. If she is going to insist on talking to me she can do it on the way home. She quietly follows me out into the cool fall night. I can tell that my lack of reaction to her outburst over Spike has more than worried her, that we are heading into full-out freak, complete with suicide watch.

They did that the first week I was back. Well, not Xander or Giles, just Willow and Tara would watch me, never let me alone for any amount of time. It nearly drove me crazy to be watched, for a Slayer to be watched all the time drives us wild, like a chained dog unable to protect its family. They nearly drove me into a frenzy.

A frigid north wind whips up the discarded paper wrappers in the alley and cuts right through my coat. I feel her gathering the nerve to ask me what's wrong or to tell me I was doing so well... and I don't want to hear her voice say the words, so I cut her off.

"Why is everything always so cold?" I blurt out. "Is it because I missed summer?" She still keeps pace beside me, but everything has changed as I feel her anger draining away into guilt.

And the ember from before is back. It sparks into a tiny flame. I think I recognize it as anger. Not the projected kind that I can't stop feeling from the others, the kind that I used to feel. It's mine, it belongs to me.

"Look, Buffy, I am so sorry that I . . ." She begins the apology that I've heard at least a hundred times in the past few weeks and that makes the flame grow even higher. I revel in this new sense of warmth; I don't want it to end, so I pull up some of my reserves of energy and throw it at the anger.

"Willow would you shut up, please," I tell her, stopping in the middle of the alley to face her. "You want me to forgive you for ripping me out of heaven, for tearing me apart, to make yourself feel . . ." I pause as I see her grief and the tears welling up in her eyes; her guilt at her actions rises up and overwhelms my fragile flame. It smothers the spark as if it wasn't there.

"I'm so cold . . . ." I turn to continue down the alley towards home, leaving her standing there.

I pull my jacket so that it's wrapped around me as I watch my feet. I'm putting one foot in front of the other, hoping that I can make it home.

I'm about to reach the end of the alley when I realize I've gone down to one knee. It takes a moment for my mind to catch up to my body as I reach up and behind, stopping a second blow to the back of my head. My spider sense doesn't go off, so I know it's a human mugger and not a demon. At the same time, I realize I'm squeezing the mugger's wrist too hard. The sound of his bones snapping reminds me of Dawn's favorite cereal--Rice Crispies. I maintain the pressure on his wrist as I stand up and turn around. And I hear more pops as his elbow and then shoulder are twisted out of joint.

I watch his dirty face, I look into his frozen eyes and I feel kindred to him. He's lost all hope, all sense that life can be something beautiful, just like me. But then his face contorts into a mask of agony as the damage I've done to him breaks through whatever drug he's used to dull the ache of hopelessness. The scream starts as a low wail, then climbs higher and higher in one long avalanche of sound that assaults me. It tears at the wall surrounding me like Willow and her self-centered guilt never could.

Suddenly the flame that had been smothered over and over again by my friends flares up into one huge inferno. The man's cries adding fuel to the rage burning deep within me. I can't stand the man, because he is just like me.

He's my mirror.

I have to make the noise stop! I have to stop it before it consumes me! I can't let the pain out! If I do, if I let the pain out, then I will hurt her. And so help me God, as much as I hate her right now, I still love her, too.

"Shut up!" I shout into his face. "Just shut up," I yell at him trying to get him to just stop. My words are useless as his knees begin to buckle so that I'm holding him up by his injured arm. Over and over he wails, like a pitiful wounded animal that deserves to have mercy.

He doesn't deserve mercy. I don't deserve mercy and it's now my face staring back at me with bright panicked eyes.

I look down at my open hand; I clench it into a claw and see the tendons clearly outlined against the bone. If my hands can crush bones, what else could they do? He's on his knees before me, his head tilted back, so all I have to do is reach down and place my claw around his exposed throat. Instantly the wailing is choked off. So I lift and then carry him until he's pushed up against the rough brick wall of the alleyway. I see a flash of something in his hand, the one that I haven't ruined, and he's hitting me with it over and over.

Only, now, I feel nothing. Again.

I'm tired.

I'm cold.

I drop the mugger. He lies still in the trash of the alley.

It's too hard to reach down and see if he has a pulse, so I turn away to go home.

I'm a block away when I hear the siren.

"He stabbed you in the arm," she says behind me. "While you were not actually killing him, he stabbed you in the arm."

I stop walking.

Willow comes up to me and takes my arm into her warm hands. Nothing feels real; and yet, at the same time, it feels too real. I see the sleeve of my coat has a long rip in it, so Willow tears it open. The sound of the ripping fabric is so loud that I jerk away from her to cover my ears.

"Buffy? Buffy, look at me...." I hear her voice as if she's speaking underwater. I can barely make sense of her words. "We have to get home," Willow's hot hand grips my chin making me face her--I don't want to face her--because it's the mugger's eyes I see staring back at me.

I have to stop the mugger from screaming--I have to stop me from screaming--from breaking.

"Buffy!" She shouts, and I see my bloody claw just a few inches from her neck. "Buffy, please, just let me take care of you," she pleads as a single tear leaks from her eye and tracks slowly down her face. I watch as her lips keep moving as if she's talking and yet there is no sound. I see a few strands of bright red hair get lifted up by a cold breeze and carried into her face. She angrily brushes them aside.

All I can feel is her need, her need for me to forgive her, her need to fix what she has broken.

Her need for me to love her.

Need, that's all she's made of up of at the moment.

Any gentle thoughts of love are drowned in the deluge of emotion.

Need, want, desire for forgiveness.

My needs for sanity, for space, for just the simple friendship that we once shared don't matter to her. She's the avalanche that rolls down the hill destroying everything in its path.

I hate her. I hate her selfishness.

I hate me for still loving her. I hate that all I want to do at night, when the nightmares attack, is to go to her and lose myself in her warmth. I hate that all I want to do right now is fall into her arms and let her take care of me.

I can't. I can't forgive her. I can't let myself be weak enough to love her. If I forgive her, then I'll break. It's all that's holding me together.

She reaches for my injured arm, and uses her belt to tie the sleeve of my coat closed. It's not meant to stop the bleeding, just to keep the blood from falling onto the ground.

"Let's get home before some nasty comes looking for a meal," Willow says earnestly. The warmth of her hand is seeping through the layers of my clothing.

"You're warm," I tell her, looking down at her hand holding my arm up to keep the bleeding down.

"And you're going into shock," Willow tugs on my injured arm to get me to start walking again. I just stand there. I don't want to go home. I don't want to let her feel better for taking care of me.

"No," I force the word through lips numb with cold.

I don't want to fall asleep with her hot hands bandaging my wound like we used to do . . . before.

"Buffy, you're going into shock," she pleads with me as her warmth begins to seep into my arm. "We need to get you home before you pass out." She continues trying to convince me to move with her.

Her need is changing flavor. She's becoming outwardly focused. I watch as her eyes glance around at all the dark shadows; I feel it as her need changes from selfish to selfless.

It's such a relief not to be pounded with all her guilt that I feel like I can breathe for the first time since leaving the Bronze.

She's afraid.

But her fear I can handle because she's not forcing it on me.

Her fear is rising up and she squeezes the cut on my arm without knowing it.

The pain that shoots through me is... refreshing.

"Buffy!" Willow yells again to get my attention focused back on her instead of on the physical pain. I look up at her big luminous eyes. They almost seem to be glowing in the darkness or are they glowing with darkness? There is something about them that draws me.

"Please start walking towards home," She begs quietly. I know that she's really getting frightened that some big bad is out here just waiting to pounce on the helpless Slayer.

Only I'm not helpless. Neither is Willow. She's just afraid. She is afraid to use her power, her magic. Afraid of making a mistake, like she did with me.

I am the constant reminder of her biggest mistake.

The mugger's face swims back into my mind's eye.

"I-I hurt him," I tell her, suddenly horrified at what I did. I turn and easily pull away from her. "I need to go back; I need to go fix my mistake." I take two steps and my spider sense flares up. I go into Slayer mode.

I look around trying to find the vampire, only to have him step in front of me.

"Slayer," Spike greets me. Then he makes a show of turning to Willow. "Red." Willow walks up to me and places her hand on my shoulder protectively. That nearly makes me laugh; now she wants to protect me?

"From the fine smell of Slayer blood, I figured you could use some help." Spike says, blocking my path back to the alley, where I left my victim.

I hear a relieved sigh from Willow.

"Yes, Buffy was hurt and I was trying to convince her to come home with me before any vamps...." Willow starts talking again. I can tell by the way Spike is standing that he expects some kind of fight. Whether from me or from some nasty, I don't know.

"Well Slayer, seems to me you can't do anything for the bugger in the alley, 'sides Red there already dialed up help for him. So why don't we just move along back to Casa'de Summers?" Spike walks forward slowly, his arms out at his sides as if he was trying to tame a wild animal.

Now that Willow is no longer holding onto my arm, both the warmth and the pain go away, leaving me--cold--again. A shiver works its way up my spine and I feel my teeth begin to chatter.

"Buffy." I hear Willow next to me but the tunnel effect is back and I can barely understand her. She grabs my chin turning me towards her. "I said, Buffy, you are going into shock. Let me get you home." Her warm fingers feel so good against my skin that I would follow her anywhere, if she would just hold me.

Hold me without guilt or pain; just simply hold me. How can I tell her that? How can I ever make her understand that all I want is her warmth? That I don't want her guilt over pulling me out of heaven; I don't need for her to be in pain all the time, all I really want is my best friend back. The one I could say 'I love you' to or tell her, 'you hurt me' or 'I don't want to live in this world, but I will, just so I can be close to you.'

"Com'on luv, let me give you...." Spike's arms go around me as Willow steps back. The spark of fire flares and I am so angry that it burns all the coldness, all the hate away. The mugger couldn't handle my rage; Willow is even more fragile. Spike is an acceptable target. Spike is my match....

The first punch knocks him on his ass ten feet away from me. Willow is horrified; Willow is upset at the violence.

Willow can go or stay, it doesn't matter. In this one moment with the rage burning a path through me, nothing matters. Not even Willow. Just the fire inside of me, warming me, waking me up.

"What'd you do that for?" Spike says, rubbing his jaw with his hand, while he is still lying on the ground. He's the only one I can't feel, he's the only one who doesn't overload me with their wants or wishes to be forgiven. Right now, he's playing the martyr for Willow. I stalk over to him, giving him plenty of time to get up and fight, before I kick him in the ribs. I hear the crunch of three going....

"That's going to hurt in the morning," I pull my leg back for another kick. He grabs it and twists, making me fall. Then he's sitting on top of me, on my stomach, trying to capture my arms so he can pin them down.... It's a simple move to bring my legs up, wrap them around his shoulders and pull him off of me. I jump to my feet and something human

grabs me.

I look down, and it's Willow. She's grabbed me from behind, her arms wrapped around me in a pathetic attempt to keep me from beating Spike.

"Buffy, stop," she orders. And I do stop, because Willow does matter. She is the only one that can snuff out the flame of rage as if it wasn't there. She is also the reason there is rage.

"I'm cold," I tell her over my shoulder.

"I know," she answers.

She thinks she has all the answers. She doesn't, I'm cold because I left the most important part of me in the damp earth when I dug my way out.

"Let me take you home?" she asks and her arm guides me away from the bloody corpse that is Spike.

"Ok," I let her guide me through the night.

I have lost the one thing I need--love--that's what I left behind when I clawed myself out the grave.

There are only two things in the world that can make me warm. One is rage. The other is love.

"Willow." She stops and turns to me. I can't say it. So she turns back and we continue towards the house that is no longer my home.

**Part Two**

I lie on my bed in just my bra and panties with a thick blanket pulled up to my chest. The blanket is made of wool from the 'Highlands' that Giles brought back as a gift for mom when he went to see the council last month . . . . No, it was last year. I was dead for 148 days. Nearly half of a year. Giles went to see the council almost a full year ago. Mom and I were so worried about Dawn being the Key.

I shiver with the cold. The gooseflesh rises up on my arms as I try to burrow deeper into the bed and blanket. For wool, the blanket is soft, and it should keep me warm. I pull it up to my face with my good hand; I don't want the smell of blood to ruin it. Right now it smells of the two people that I love the most in the world, the two people that used to mean safety and love--Giles and Mom.

"Ok, Buffy, let me see your arm," Willow comes into the room and sits on the bed with the medical kit. It should be Giles sitting there instead. Mom never liked it when I got hurt, so I would always go to Giles, and he would call her with some kind of excuse. An excuse that she would pretend to believe, only when I got home the next morning her laser mom eyes would search for the bandages. When she found them, she would turn away so I wouldn't see her tears and then ask me if I wanted pancakes... I never felt so loved.

I think I was with Mom... I mean, I remember a presence that was Mom. I think that's why it was so warm there, because Mom, Grandie, and Ceily were all there and holding me.

Willow takes my bloody arm in her hands and some of the blood smears the blanket. Red on white.

"Oh, I'm sorry Buffy! I'll wash it when I'm done. It'll be good as new I promise." She continues and I think she doesn't know. She didn't know. I look at the red on white again. Now the blanket will smell of blood and pain and anger instead of safety and love.

Now I am cold.

She didn't know.

She couldn't know.

Red on white.

Willow is bent over my arm studying it, trying to figure out the best way to attach the muscle back to the bone.

I'm so cold.

She didn't know.

Red on white. Suddenly, there is more red. The red is growing and soaking the white through. Little droplets, big circles of red spraying across the white. Creating a pattern in the blanket like a tie-dyed tee shirt.

I wonder where it came from?

I see my bloody claw. I don't believe it. I lift it up in fascination. The rivulets of red dance down my arm from my hand. I wonder at the brilliance of the color.

Then my gaze is drawn to Willow. Her blank eyes are staring at me as her blood continues to spray my bed.

I didn't know.

I couldn't know.

I look back at my hand to make sure what I'm seeing is real. In my dirty, bloody claw - is Willow's heart.

I hear a gurgling noise and my eyes are drawn to her face.

"Why, Buffy? Why?" I hear her voice clearly. The same question I want her to answer. The same question I want to ask....

"Why, Willow, Why?" I jerk awake.

"Why what, Buffy?" Willow asks, walking into my bedroom.

**Part Three**

The sun is shining brightly through the window and I look down at my neatly-bandaged arm. My body feels heavy, weighted, and my mind is fuzzy. I think if I just rolled over I could go back to sleep.

"Why did you pull me out of heaven?" The words are out and in the air before I'm awake enough pull them back. Willow stops in the middle of the room and flinches, as if I just sucker punched her in the gut with Slayer strength. All color drains from her face as she slowly pivots around towards me. Her mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for air.

"What... how... finally!" She gasps out the words, standing straighter with each one until she nearly shouts the last. I push myself up so that I'm sitting and I think the weakness in my body is caused by more than blood loss from the night before....

"You drugged me!" Now it's my turn to nearly shout at her. The anger tries to rise up, only I feel disconnected from it. Disconnected from my body. Disconnected from my life. I don't want to live like this. Who am I kidding? I don't want to live, period.

"Yes, I did," Willow admits and crosses her arms in a purely defensive gesture. I just stare at her, trying to get her to turn away or to leave. I want to be alone, I don't want to talk or try to act normal, whatever normal was for me, I didn't remember.

"I didn't know I was pulling you out of heaven." Willow mumbles, trying to stare me down. Why is Willow mumbling if she is also staring at me? Passive-aggressive much?

Willow never challenges people like this, she never stares. She confuses me for a moment while I replay our conversation... or lack of conversation. The drug she used is clouding my mind.

I realize that I'm supposed to say something now. I don't know what I can say to her. I try to run things through, try to think beyond the fogginess and can't, so I do the last thing I wanted to do. I'm honest.

"No, you didn't know because you didn't think, you didn't research it," I accuse, I know that my eyes are hardening, that the Slayer is peeking out, and for a second I see her eyes flicker away from mine. That moment gives her away as my words replay in my head. Since when has Willow not researched the Hell out of every major spell? That means she did research it and if she did research it that means.... Rage burns away the coldness and the last of the drug.

I fly out of the bed, I can feel the need to hurt her rise up, it's so overwhelming. All I would have to do is take two steps and then I could make her hurt, like I'm hurting right now. She stands there, she just stands there staring at me, knowing that the Slayer would take that as threat--she doesn't move or try to defend her actions--I want to feel the bones in her neck break under my hands. I want my dream to come true, I want to crush my hand into her chest and pull out her heart. Then stuff it down her throat before she dies.

And... I see defeat in her sad eyes.

She wants to die, she doesn't want to live. I don't understand.

Words begin to form, pushing back the rage, the need for blood.

"You knew!" I scream at her. "You knew, and you did it anyway!"

She flinches away from my words. Killing her wouldn't hurt her enough, words have the true power.

I let the tears come, I let the pain I've been feeling show on the outside, I want her to hurt. And if the only way I can hurt her is by letting her see my pain, then so be it.

"How could you do this to me?" My voice cracking as my breath starts to come in great heaving gasps. I can't breathe and I don't want to, as my knees give out and I fall to the floor at her feet.

"How could you betray me?" I yell as loud as I can, and through my blurry vision I see her resolve crumbling.

I hear Xander, Spike, and Dawn run into the room.

"Buffy?" Dawn's startled cry causes me to instinctively try to gain control, only I stop the reaction. I grab onto Willow's legs letting my pain pour out, as I scream at her.

"How could you!" I scream and scream at her. I imagine that all my pain is flowing into her. My fingernails are digging in her pants leg and leaving bloody trails where I cut her and still she stands there, stoic tears running down her face.

"Buff, back off," I vaguely hear Xander. Then he and Spike are pulling me away from her. And still she stands there like some kind of statue, taking it in and accepting all my anger, all my pain at being back! My throat is hurting from my screaming and my voice is the barest of whispers; Spike and Xander have somehow pinned me to my bed.

Still, I try to keep screaming, "How could you betray me!"

Dawn has a syringe in her hand and I know what they plan to do. So I redouble my efforts to squirm away from my captors. What started out as something to hurt Willow, has turned into more.

I feel the slight sting as Dawn injects whatever it was into me. So I know time is short, I'll never have this chance again. I know that I've frightened everyone badly. And I know that I'd been asking the wrong question of Willow. It wasn't how could she betray me, it was why. The drug has taken the hysterical edge off and I start to float.

I look up into her tear-streaked face, and ask my question: "Why did you bring me back?"

And she crumbles. That is the question that causes her to crumble; she topples forward onto her knees. Spike and Xander climb off me and the bed, now that I'm no longer fighting them. So I'm able to sit up and slide off the side until I'm on my knees facing her.

She reaches out and cups my cheek in her hand, then softly brushes a strand of hair that had fallen into my face behind my ear. Willow gives me such a soft, gentle smile that is so full of pain, of all the pain I just poured into her... that my heart shatters.

"Why?" my voice is gone, so it's no louder than my breath.

"Because I couldn't live without you," she whispers back and then my Willow collapses against me and now she's screaming. "Please, please, forgive me. Please, I'll go away, I will, just please live."

I lean back against the bed and pull her into my arms to cradle her like a baby.

I don't know if it's the drug that making me so calm or if it's exhaustion after such a release....

I put my finger over her soft mouth. I need her to hear me; I need for her to understand. "Will, Willow, shuss." She swallows, once twice. "Breathe with me, Will," I tell her, taking deep breaths. She follows my lead like the most trusting child. She looks up with her tear-filled green eyes with such love.

"Will," I pause. I know I'm going to hurt her, and unlike just a few moments ago, I don't want to ever cause her pain again. "Will," I begin again, "I will never be able to forgive you."

She shatters, she's lying in my arms, and she shatters. She slowly closes her eyes, blocking my only window into her, my only escape route from myself, so I shake her slightly.

That causes her protectors to take a step forward. Dawn is standing with her arms crossed at the foot of my bed, with Xander and Spike in identical poses behind her.

I take Willow's chin in my hand and see Spike tense. He knows that if I just twist her head, I could snap her neck like a twig. Only I don't want to now, so I give her the gentlest of shakes. I know I don't have a lot of control over my strength at the moment, so I try to be extra careful.

Willow doesn't react so I shake her again and say "Will, please open your eyes, please. I have to be able to see them when I tell you."

Her baby greens blink open. "You already said you could never forgive me?" And I nod to her.

"That's true, but I do love you." I tell her, watching her eyes intently as they open wider in surprise and happiness. Her arms wrap around my neck and I'm pulled down into a small chaste kiss on the lips. I let the other shoe drop, I have to be honest with her. "Will there's more." I hesitate. "I still don't want to live."

I hear the collective gasps from the others, like that's news or something. My Will, though, she just nods. "I know, Buffy. I know... I'm going to help," she tells me stroking my arm with her hand.

I shrug my shoulders. I can't believe how calm I am, how cleansing all this feels. Again I wonder if it's the drug. "I don't know, baby, I just don't know how."

She accepts the name and she reaches up to kiss me on the cheek. "Then let me help you, let us help you find out how to live again." Her eyes spill over with tears once more and I--I can't say a word.

I can only nod and then I'm wrapped in the love of my family.

And I think I want to live . . . if I can have my Willow.

**The End**


End file.
